31. Wesley
WESLEY
The house is too quiet without Bailey. Too still. The kids are gone, Sean’s gone, even Bailey herself is gone. That leaves me, Huck, and the echo of every bad decision that’s brought us here.
I sit at the kitchen table with my laptop open, screen glowing against the late afternoon shadows. I’ve been staring at the same folder for the better part of an hour, the cursor hovering over a stack of images that never should have existed.
The photos.
Bailey’s injuries, catalogued in raw, ugly detail. Bruises black and yellow around her eye, a split lip, handprints burned purple into her throat. Each picture is a punch to the gut, proof of everything David is and everything he’ll deny.
The temptation gnaws at me. If I leak them, just one or two, the world erupts.
The tabloids will run them. The public will rage.
The industry will whisper but louder this time, and David will be backed into a corner.
And when he’s cornered, he’ll lash out. That’s what men like him do.
He’ll make his move, and then we’ll have our excuse to end him.
Clean. Simple. No ambiguity.
Except it’s not.
Bailey would put it together in a heartbeat that I was the one behind it, that I used the tools she trusts me to use for her protection to ruin her. Not an option. I shut the folder, push the laptop away, drag my hands down my face.
The house creaks with the sound of Huck moving through it.
Heavy boots across tile, the muted thump of him testing the perimeter again, restless.
He passes through the kitchen, eyeing me, the bandage on his arm tugged tight, fresh spots of red seeping through.
He doesn’t comment on what I’m doing. Huck doesn’t need to.
He reads me better than most people ever will.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he says finally.
“That obvious?”
“Always is with you.”
I tap the laptop. “What if we leaked them? The photos. Push him into a corner. Force his hand to make him respond…give us the excuse we need to finish this.”
Huck leans against the counter, crossing his good arm over his chest. His expression doesn’t change. “Would she forgive you?”
“No.” I don’t even pause. The word burns on my tongue. “She’d hate me for it.”
“Then you already know the answer.”
I glare at him, frustration sharp. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”
He pushes off the counter, his size filling the room like a threat aimed at a man who’s not here. “David’s a cancer. We cross him off the census, problem solved.”
The bluntness of it lands hard. Huck says it like it’s simple, because to him it is. Violence is clean. Direct. A problem that gets solved with finality.
And part of me wants it. Part of me wants to nod, grab a rifle, and make it real.
“I agree,” I say finally, voice low. “He should be gone. But her wishes come first.”
He spins on his heel, stalking back toward the far wall. “It’s what should happen. He hurt her. He hurt the kids. That’s all the reason I need.”
I rub the bridge of my nose, pushing my glasses higher. “You don’t think Bailey’s voice matters in this?”
“Of course it matters,” he says. “But she’s wrong.”
The bluntness of it makes me bark out a laugh, sharp and humorless. “You really just said that out loud.”
He shrugs his massive shoulders. “I love her. I’ll bleed for her. I’ll follow her lead on most things. But this? This is bigger. She’s too close to see it clear. David’s poison. You don’t let poison sit in the water because someone asks you to.”
His words hit harder than I want to admit. My chest tightens because I know he’s not wrong. But Bailey’s face, Bailey’s voice, Bailey’s trust—those things carry more weight for me than the clean simplicity of violence.
“You think killing him fixes everything,” I say, forcing my tone flat. “But it doesn’t. It’s not the SEALs anymore, Huck. We don’t get to play judge, jury, and executioner. Not here. Not with her watching.”
He stops pacing long enough to look at me, his eyes dark. “So we wait until he causes permanent damage?”
The words lodge in my throat. I don’t have a good answer.
He plants his hands on the back of the couch, knuckles white. “Defense is a joke. Information is too slow. The only permanent answer is permanent .”
Finally, I sigh and flip open my laptop fully, forcing the conversation to an end. “Fine. If I can’t kill him, I’ll rob him. That I can live with.”
Huck snorts, a short, sharp sound that might almost be approval. “Do your thing, tech boy. Bleed him dry if you can’t bleed him out.”
I glance at him, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth despite the darkness in the room. “Careful, you sound like you approve.”
“It’s a start.” He stalks out then, leaving me with the glow of my screen and the low hum of my rage.
I crack my knuckles and start pulling up David’s accounts. David thinks money makes him untouchable. He’s wrong.
I lean back, crack my knuckles, and start.
The routine is muscle memory by now—spoof my location, build false trails through three different continents, slip behind the cheap walls of protection his banks think are iron gates.
David’s passwords are predictable. Birthdays, production codes from films he’s proud of, a combination of initials and numbers that make me roll my eyes.
The first account cracks in under ten minutes. A fat line of numbers greets me, zeroes stacking high. He keeps a lot liquid, too much for a man who likes to flaunt but still play safe. Probably thinks he can grab it if he needs to disappear.
I don’t give him the chance.
With a few keystrokes, I siphon half. Not into my pockets.
Not into offshore accounts. Into women’s shelters, one after another.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York. I split it, keep the transfers small, layered through a dozen intermediaries.
By the time anyone notices, the money will already be spent on beds and meals and locks for doors men like David try to kick in.
The satisfaction is sharp. For once, his money isn’t buying him silence. It’s buying safety—for women and children.
But it isn’t enough.
I go for the next account. This one takes longer—foreign currency, more firewalls—but eventually I’m through.
Another fat stack of zeroes, more arrogance made visible.
I drain it too, this time routing it through a network of shelters in smaller towns.
Women who don’t make headlines, who can’t just pick up and move to LA or New York.
Click by click, I bleed him.
When the third account opens, I’m smiling. My chest feels lighter, the anger easing into something sharper, cleaner. This is justice. Maybe not the kind Huck wants, maybe not the kind Sean pushes for, but mine.
Still, when I finish, when the last transfer pings complete, the rage seeps back in. It’s satisfying, yes. But not permanent. He’ll make more. His family is filthy rich too. He’ll find ways to patch the holes.
I lean back in the chair, running a hand down my face. My eyes flick to my phone on the table. Maybe it’s not enough to take. Maybe I need to make him feel it.
I pull up a spoofed number, one that looks like it’s routed through an anonymous service. Something he won’t trace. My thumbs fly across the screen.
Check your bank accounts.
I hit send.
The message goes out, vanishing into the ether.
I picture him at some dinner, some smug cocktail party, feeling the buzz in his pocket, pulling his phone out with that little smirk he thinks makes him charming.
I picture the way his face changes when he sees the numbers drop, the way he stumbles, the way his perfect mask cracks.
I wait.
The phone stays silent. No reply. No call. Not even the dots of someone typing. It’s almost worse than a reply.
“Coward,” I mutter, tossing the phone down. “You don’t even have the guts to answer.”
The monitors flicker. A guard outside radios in, routine. I answer back, automatic, but my head is still in the numbers, the absence of response. I wanted him angry. I wanted him rattled. Instead, all I have is silence.
The house hums with the kind of quiet that makes my skin itch. The monitors glow, the HVAC sighs, the fridge clicks on and off. I’m still staring at my phone, waiting for dots that never appear under the text I sent David. Nothing. He’s a black hole—no heat, no light, just gravity.
My phone vibrates once, the short, sharp buzz I use for our encrypted thread.
Sean: Track my signal. Get to me. Now.
The word now hits like a hammer. I’m already moving, shoving the laptop off my thighs, fingers flying over the keys to wake the ops tablet.
Huck sets his mug down without looking, the sound a solid ceramic thunk. “What is it?”
“Sean,” I say, throat tight. “He wants us on his location.”
I route into our device management, yank up the beacon on his phone. A map blooms, the dot pulsing near the coast. My eyes run the numbers, the road options, the traffic data bleeding red where the highway chokes. I do the math without thinking.
“Hour out,” I tell Huck, already tossing him the keys to the Tahoe. “If we hit green lights and you don’t bleed on my upholstery.”
“On it.” He stands. The chair legs scrape back with a bark that makes the house sound awake again.
I thumb a reply as we move: En route. Confirm why.
We round the corner into the hall and pass two of our guards—eyes alert, rifles slung low. I jerk my chin toward the den. “You two stay in the house. Tell Chief. Emergency situation. Do not leave the property.”
We hit the mudroom. I grab my go-bag from the hook, check the weight by feel. Huck shrugs into a jacket he shouldn’t be wearing with that arm and ignores my look the way he always does. He racks a round into the shorty we keep by the door like he’s checking his watch.
My phone buzzes again. Sean: Bailey walked into an ambush.
I stop so fast Huck bumps my shoulder. I read Sean’s message aloud.
Huck’s voice goes flat. “Say that again.”
“Ambush,” I repeat, already moving again because stopping helps no one. “She’s not alone.”
“Where the hell is she?” Huck asks as we push through the garage door.
“Working on it,” I say, though the map is already telling me what I don’t want it to. I drop Chief a live share of Sean’s dot and ours just in case, as Huck slams the Tahoe into reverse and backs out fast enough the tires chirp.
The phone buzzes once more. A call from Sean. His voice is compressed but steady, the way it gets when his adrenaline runs clean. “Track my signal and get here yesterday.”
“We’re an hour out,” I say, Huck pressing the Tahoe harder than he should through a yellow that’s almost red. “What are we walking into?”
There’s a beat. Gravel under tires wherever he is. Wind.
Sean’s voice is eerily calm. “David has joined the party.”